For Social Retargeter Triggit, A Surge In FBX Revenue

Facebook's Exchange is big business. Just how big can be hard to pin down, since Facebook breaks out neither revenue nor volume for its retargeting business. That leaves us grasping at occasional straws dropped by the 17 qualified FBX vendors.

For example, late last year AppNexus indicated Facebook was exposing somewhere around 7 billion daily impressions to its buyers. It's safe to say impression volume has grown since then. More importantly, Facebook has added News Feed inventory to the retargeting pool, dramatically increasing response rates.

Here's a new clue: DSP Triggit, which has repositioned as a Facebook retargeting specialist, is on track to transact gross media billings (not net revenue) of between $50 million and $100 million this year.

That's according to CEO Zach Coelius, who -- true to character -- has been very vocal about his company's pivot.

Coelius said Triggit's revenue (including both FBX and IAB standard display, which Triggit never stopped buying) grew 779% from June 2012, when Facebook started a beta test of its real-time bidding exchange, to June 2013. He says neither month was an outlier, and adds that one year ago Triggit did "middle eight figures" in gross media revenue annually, and that the company hopes to break a nine-figure ($100 million) revenue run rate in 2013.

While this is admittedly speculative terrain, that would seem to put Triggit's 2012 gross billings at $40 to $60 million, growing to $80 to $100 million this year.

Coelius wouldn't follow AdExchanger's queries that far.

"I think the real story is just how big a deal FBX has been," he said. "We just attached ourselves for the ride and it took us really far really fast."

Much of Triggit's recent growth has come through aggressive biz dev overseas. It claims to have helped launch three e-commerce sites in India and eight in Brazil, along with a number of travel sites.

Correction: An earlier version put Triggit's estimated 2012 gross media revenue at $5 to $10 million. Those numbers were short a zero each, based on an accidental misstatement by Triggit.